Still Using POST for Everything? EchoAPI Knows a Better Way

In many dev teams, deciding whether to use POST or PUT can spark what we lovingly refer to as a “documentation-level war.” Heated Slack threads. Long Notion comments. The occasional passive-aggressive emoji reaction. Everyone’s got a preference, and no one agrees.

But have you ever actually paused to ask—where did these HTTP methods come from? Why do we have so many of them? What problems were they invented to solve? And more importantly: how does EchoAPI bring something fresh to this decades-old dilemma?

Once Upon a Time, All We Had Was GET and POST

Back in the early days of the web—think dial-up tones and table-based layouts—the internet was a pretty chill place. All you needed were two HTTP verbs:

• GET to grab stuff
• POST to send stuff

That was enough. Websites were just documents. The most interactive thing you did was submit a contact form. APIs? Most people hadn’t even heard the term.

But the internet grew up. Enter Web 2.0, REST APIs, and mobile apps. Now, websites needed to do things, not just show things. People wanted to update profiles, delete comments, change settings, query system statuses, and more. The binary world of GET and POST wasn’t cutting it anymore.

And so, new HTTP methods were introduced to bring order to this growing complexity:

• PUT: Replace an entire resource (like uploading a whole product object)
• PATCH: Make a precise change to a single field without sending the whole payload
• DELETE: No more fake deletes using POST
• HEAD: Just check if the resource exists, thanks
• OPTIONS: Like knocking on the server’s door—“Can I do this?”

These became standardized in RFC 7231, and together they form the semantic toolbox we use to describe our API intentions.

These verbs didn't just organize our code—they made our APIs more expressive, self-describing, and automation-friendly. That means better documentation, smarter tooling, and fewer misunderstandings across teams.

But Real-World APIs Are Messy

But let’s be honest—despite all that tidy structure, anyone who's worked on real-world APIs knows: standard HTTP methods often leave you high and dry.

• Need to duplicate a file into another folder? You’re forced to fake it with POST /file and a mysterious body like { "action": "copy", "target": "/new-folder" }.
• Want to lock a document to prevent conflicting edits? That’s another POST, probably named something like /doc/lock.
• Trying to sync data with a third-party service? Now you’re inventing POST /sync or POST /job with { "type": "sync", "retry": true }. Everyone on the team reads it differently.
• Clearing a stale cache in production? Some poor soul writes POST /cache?action=purge. It works—until someone forgets the action param and nothing happens.
• Just need to get a resource’s metadata? Congrats, you’ve now built GET /resource/meta .

Sure, all of this "works." But it's duct tape.
You're faking verbs. You're overloading endpoints. You're writing docs to explain things that should be self-explanatory.
What’s worse, every team member might handle it slightly differently—leading to inconsistent logic, security headaches, and test chaos.

This isn’t just bad style—it’s technical debt in disguise.
And the bigger your system gets, the more painful it becomes.

EchoAPI: Modern Elegance

At EchoAPI, we thought: why fight HTTP when you can embrace it?

We’ve built native support for these underused—but incredibly useful—HTTP methods:

But we didn’t stop there.

We also let you define your own HTTP methods.

So if your system has a POST + type=syncData or POST + action=export, you can level that up into:

• SYNC
• EXPORT
• REINDEX
• ARCHIVE

Suddenly, your APIs start to read like a real language—clean, expressive, and obvious even to junior devs or external integrators.

Why It Matters (More Than You Think)

• Clearer API docs: No more footnotes explaining, “Yes, this is a POST, but it really deletes something.”
• Better collaboration: Frontend, backend, QA, and PMs all speak the same method-based language.
• Smarter testing: Tools can auto-generate tests based on intent, not just paths.
• Cleaner mock data: You don’t need to fake methods to match test scenarios.

And perhaps most importantly: your API becomes something you’re proud to demo.

RFC 7231 gave us a vocabulary.
EchoAPI helps you tell better stories with it.

A Strategy Built for Real-World Business Logic

EchoAPI is not here to support every obscure method ever defined in an IETF doc. EchoAPI is opinionated—in the best way. We focus on HTTP methods that are:

• Frequent in business workflows
• Sensitive in terms of system behavior
• Ambiguous in traditional REST design

Our goal? To help dev teams stop debating semantics and start shipping clean, maintainable APIs.

“Let your API’s behavior match its meaning.”

Even if you’re a small startup, EchoAPI gives you tools that feel like they were made for a Fortune 500 dev team. Clean interfaces. Precise verbs. Built-in test automation.

So go ahead—retire that awkward POST + action=magic.
Define your own method.
Let your API finally speak like it knows what it’s doing.